42 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



the foundation and endowment of St. John's College, also 

 at Cambridge. Similarly, the properties of other nun- 

 neries, large and small, were appropriated for the founda- 

 tion of collegiate institutions at Oxford, all of which were 

 for the benefit of men. 



And so it was that, in a few short years, the great work 

 of centuries was undone and women were left little better 

 educational facilities than when the Anglo-Saxon nuns 

 began their noble work in a land that was enveloped in 

 1 1 one dark night of unillumined barbarism. ? ' 



One would have thought that Elizabeth, who was so 

 highly educated, and who did so much for the supremacy 

 of her country on land and sea, would have bethought her- 

 self of the necessity of doing something for the education 

 of her female subjects. But no. She did nothing for 

 them, and the founders of the endowed grammar schools, 

 during her reign, gave never a thought to the educational 

 necessities of the girls. They made provision only for the 

 boys. In this respect, however, the "Virgin Queen" was 

 but following in the footsteps of the male sovereigns and 

 legislators who had preceded her, and who, although af- 

 fecting an interest in having women 1 1 sensible and virtuous, 

 seem by their conduct toward the sex to have entered into 

 a general conspiracy to order it otherwise. " 



The truth is, when anything was achieved for the intel- 

 lectual advancement of women it was due either to private 

 instruction or to the result of a protracted struggle on 

 the part of women themselves for what they deemed their 

 indefeasible rights. Had they relied on the spontaneous 

 action of men and on legislation in favor of female educa- 

 tion to which men had given the initiative, they would to- 

 day be in the same condition of ignorance and seclusion 

 and servitude as was the Athenian woman twenty-five cen- 

 turies ago, and would occupy a status but little above that 

 of the inmates of oriental harems and zenanas. 



The Anglo-Saxon nuns were, as we have seen, specially 



